


Emotion

by rosetwopointoh



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Angst, Other, Post-Horizon (Mass Effect), past Kaidan/Shepard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-06
Updated: 2015-01-11
Packaged: 2018-03-06 10:14:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3130808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosetwopointoh/pseuds/rosetwopointoh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You're in the presence of a legend, Delan. And a ghost.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Fear

When Shepard had heard that one Kaidan Alenko would be on Horizon, her heart pitter-pattered in her chest; it thumped noisily, an uneven meter in the thick vein of her neck on the shuttle down to the planet’s surface, throbbing in her ears under the open sky, even the concern over whether Mordin’s seeker swarm solution would work bantering over their comms just background noise. She felt shielded, though not safe--whether for good or bad, she wasn’t sure--in full N7 armor, her breather helmet both claustrophobic and comforting. Miranda had been pissed when Shepard had picked Jack for the ground team; she’d told the Cerberus operative in no uncertain terms that she would not be leaving them together on the Normandy until they were less likely to blow it up _nor_ bringing them both on a ground team for more or less the same reasons, and frankly, she trusted Jack more than she trusted Miranda.

Which was quite possibly a more accurate insight into her state of mind than anything else.

And, of course, there was no one else to have her six but Garrus. She wouldn’t have it any other way, and no one argued, not in sideways glances nor backward looks; there was a deeply built _trust_ there, one that she needed in the tenuous days of the beginning of her second life, in a way that the turian understood perhaps in more ways than she could have guessed.

They moved through the devastated colony, dispatching husks, Collectors, sighing over frozen colonists, and all the while, the acid knot in Shepard’s stomach wound tighter around the Illusive Man’s voice; _Kaidan, Kaidan, Kaidan._

 

“You! Hey, I know who you are, right? Some fancy Captain or something--”

Shepard had more or less tuned out the mechanic at this point, focusing on categorizing the nastiness of enemies they’d met, the effects of the interrupted attack on the colonists, extrapolating that data to the galaxy at large. Then there was another voice, one that made her heart stutter, even though she’d told it not to, told it to beat evenly, smoothly, strong, something it had decidedly failed to do.

She didn’t fail to notice that it wasn’t the first time it had done so.

“Commander Shepard. Captain of the Normandy. The first human Spectre. Savior of the Citadel.” The footsteps stopped, and she forced herself to look at the soldier in front of her, the black armor, the assault rifle, the heavy pistol, the tingle of the biotics that felt almost as familiar as her own, that familiar spark when their fields inevitably brushed together. “You're in the presence of a legend, Delan. And a ghost.”

“All the good people we lost, and you get left behind. Figures. Screw this. I'm done with you Alliance types.” The mechanic spat on the ground and left, grumbling in his wake.

They watched him go; then Shepard had the eerie feeling of eyes on her, and she turned her head to look straight at someone she desperately wanted--and dreaded--to see.

“I thought you were dead, Shepard. We all did.”

After an awkward moment, he stepped towards her, one arm held out, as if needing a handshake to see if she was even real. She obliged, almost warily, forcing herself to grasp his hand firmly, reeling as her pounding heartbeat chased the flood of adrenaline through her veins.

“Alenko,” Garrus said in greeting, his helmet tucked under his elbow.

“Vakarian,” he replied, nodding. “And...”

“Fuck off.”

Shepard’s mouth twitched; leave it to Jack to provide entirely inappropriate levity.

“Interesting company you keep, Shepard.” Kaidan glanced between the tattooed, barely-clad biotic and his former CO.

“You know my tastes, Kaidan.” The attempt at banter failed, miserably.

“Yeah. Yeah, I do. At least I thought I did.” He crossed his arms over his chest.

“How... how have you been?” _Fuck. Could this be going any worse?_

Kaidan blinked, opened his mouth for a moment before he spoke. “Is that all you have to say? You show up after _two years_ and just act like nothing _happened?_ With _Cerberus?”_

Shepard’s mouth tightened. Her heart made itself known, again, except not in any sort of way she could rely on, racing and complaining about a lack of breath, knocking on her eardrums to alert her of the dangers of _not breathing not breathing not breath--_

“I thought we had something, Shepard. Something real. I... I loved you. Thinking you were dead tore me apart. How could you put me through that? Why didn't you try to contact me? Why didn't you let me know you were _alive_?”

Shepard swallowed, hard, trying to fight her facial expressions before remembering _full breather, Shep, whoops._ Realizing she still hadn’t holstered her weapon and that her hands were tensing dangerously, she compressed the SMG and clipped it to her thigh, took her helmet in her hands and turned; it came loose, and she removed it, habitually tilting her head so the base would clear her bun--except, well, she didn’t have one anymore.

Kaidan’s hurt, angry expression went very carefully blank as her new face was exposed. It wasn’t all that different from how Garrus had responded, really, except there had been a hell of a lot more _relief_ in the turian’s gaze, like his prayers had been answered, almost. Maybe they had; without their rather timely intervention, he’d be very, very dead. But Kaidan? Kaidan had no idea what to do with what cards he’d been dealt.

The Amy Shepard he had known had thick, glorious black hair, one pale cheek pitted from a spray of maw acid on Akuze, a scar through the opposite eyebrow and along the upper cheek below, against-regulation piercings along both ears, the bridge of her nose crooked from some long-ago fistfight. The one before him bore exactly none of these untold tales. Her skull--and what had happened to it--stood in stark relief against the sunshine, the barest fuzz of growth coming in after the bit of repair work Chakwas and Miranda had done the week before; something with how the new plates in her neck were lining up with bone had been interfering with her amp port. Scars shined flat-smooth or glowed, depending where they were and what had been repaired and how; her nose was proud and straight, flaring too flawlessly where it met her lips, the once-rippled eyebrow and lower lid returned to smoothness. An overall youth to her skin didn’t help, either: it wasn’t a face that had years of weather against it, only days and weeks.

The foreign spheres that had replaced her eyes, the great betrayers in her face--they actually looked real, like the old Shepard’s--didn’t miss the subtle shifting of his features, something so slight that she might not have seen it, had she not known his face so well.

“I wasn’t,” was all she said, softly, and blamed the dampness on sweat and sunshine.


	2. Anger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A specially modded sniper rifle might have gone through it at relatively close range, but there was no guarantee... and she flung a hunk of metal through it like it was nothing.
> 
> What had they done to her?

She was stiff and stilted for days after that, shying from even herself. There was nothing _wrong_ , in an obvious way; only Garrus and Chakwas could tell, really. Miranda, maybe, because the woman was so damned clinical in her observations. And if Miranda could, then Kelly knew, if only because Miranda would have mentioned it.

Since there was no way for Chakwas to pin Shepard down, given that their commander was fitter than a fiddle and currently harboring a reasonably ferocious dislike of medical procedures, and as Shepard refused to talk to Miranda and the idea of Kelly attempting to strike up conversation that moved anywhere towards the commander’s psych profile was utterly laughable, it was up to one Garrus Vakarian to find her and figure out the problem.

Pity she wasn’t just a gun he could calibrate. But that was the crux of the problem; too many people treating her like one and not enough treating her like _her_. He knew, from the little insights she’d given up about her life with the Reds, that it was only recently that she’d been treated like a human being. Those little tidbits of her life were pearls, pried out of heavily-armored walls when they came down over beers or were worn away by exhaustion and a dangerously low stash of heatsinks. It didn’t happen often. Garrus wondered how much of it Alenko knew, if he knew just how his words twisted the knives already buried deep into her bones.

_Dammit, Kaidan._

The elevator had deposited him just outside the loft, several minutes prior. The lock on her door was red; he could hear her inside, though, and eventually he palmed the surface. It beeped a neat negative at his command, but when Shepard swore at it from within, the lock flickered green and the door slid away. EDI’s work, unless Shepard had hacked the thing to respond to krogan invectives. Definitely a possibility, but--more likely the AI. _And_ that _is--how would Joker put it--a fuckton of crazy?_

He returned his attention to Shepard’s doorway, now open in front of him. 

“I have _told_ you, for the _last fucking time--”_ Garrus stepped sideways just in time to avoid a boot-- “to _leave_ me the _fuck_ _alone!”_

“You might want to take an anger management class from our favorite prisoner,” Garrus said, dryly, leaning against the wall dividing her desk from the rest of the room, not wanting to go down the stairs for fear of the second boot or something equally unpleasant. She was lethal with weapons and objects alike; _there’s probably an N-certification on killing people with cred chits_ , he mused.

Chancing a look at her, he found she was furious, blood raging, and glowing blue. _Well,_ that’s _not good._

“ _Shepard,”_ said the intercom, _“I really think you should--”_

_Oh. That’s why she’s all wound up._

“Lawson, _I don’t_ _give a fuck_.” And with that, the device seemingly ripped itself out of the wall and soared into the glass panel above her desk, shattering it in a burst of blue light. 

A silent moment, punctuated only by Shepard’s heavy breathing, stretched tenuously, only ending when EDI’s holographic orb popped up by the door.

“ _Commander, Operative Lawson has sent Yeoman Chambers--”_

Unintelligible rage erupted out of Shepard’s throat, and EDI flickered into darkness as Shepard’s other boot thudded into the wall above it’s platform.

Garrus repressed a sigh. “EDI, please inform Kelly--and Miranda--not to bother the Commander.”

“ _Of course, Officer Vakarian. Logging you out, Shepard.”_

Garrus waited, knowing that even Shepard couldn’t let her biotics rage out of control like this for long, knowing just how dangerous she was while encased in thick, crackling blue. He’d dealt with his share of out-of-control biotics during his time with C-Sec. Rushing it would do exactly nothing. Time stretched as she simply breathed, her lithe body heaving, gasping for air.

Suddenly, she more or less collapsed, her biotic field snap-cracking and dissipating into static. Carefully he stepped towards her and crouched down. “Hey.”

“Ngh.”

“Want some help?” He offered an arm, already knowing her answer would be no, but also knowing she needed it; her arms and legs were shaking, her tank top soaked with sweat. She grunted another non-reply and took his elbow, pretending she didn’t really need it. He pretended not to notice how much of her weight he carried.

“Shower,” she muttered.

“Well, as there’s glass all over and you’re barefoot...”

“It’s that special stuff. Protective safety barrier or whatever.”

“Spirits.” He bent and picked up a few pieces; indeed, they were all in identical eight-sided fragments, uncomfortable to step on barefoot but not dangerous. He’d seen this stuff before, had his plans on Omega ruined by it more than once. A specially modded sniper rifle might have gone through it at relatively close range, but there was no guarantee... _and she flung a hunk of metal through it like it was nothing._

What had they _done_ to her?

“There’s a broom, if you wouldn’t mind? I really need to...”

“Yeah. Go ahead, I’ll sweep this up.”

He hovered by the bathroom door until she’d palmed the shower control and sank down onto the stool that sat there, still clothed in her tank top and underarmor shorts while the water rained down, her head in her hands, disappearing behind the metal panel that slid shut.

As the turian slowly swept the fragments into a neat panel, he pretended not to hear the choking sounds on the other side of the door, the fist thudded repeatedly against the wall, the not-quite-silent wail.


	3. Grief

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You’re alive, Shepard,” he said, softly. “And you’re _you_.”
> 
> “How... how do you _know?”_

A rhythm claimed the days again. It wasn’t the same as the old one, if she’d even had an old one, and it wasn’t a good one, either, but it was a rhythm, and sometimes even Amy Shepard had to fake it ‘til she made it.

Garrus saw through it; so did Chakwas, who frowned but did not comment about the scabbed knuckles that never got more than halfway healed before she’d broken them open again, nor the bruises she should have protected herself from. The two met eyes across the mess on a regular basis, not needing words to agree on their concern. Shepard was burning herself out, barely eating, overloading her amp on an almost-daily basis, running herself (sometimes literally) into the ground.

Even so, the SR-2‘s crew grew, adding a krogan, a master thief, a grizzled merc, a drell assassin, an asari justicar; both Jack and Miranda mellowed, surprisingly, and once the mystery of Jacob’s father had been sorted he ended up spending his off hours with the rest instead of in the armory. Mordin--well, Mordin was Mordin, rattling off mnemonics under his breath and singing to his cell cultures. Garrus made a habit of being consistently present in Shepard’s orbit, making as many visits to the loft as she did the battery. Often, they were nearly silent visits, only a few words exchanged, but it was a safe space where she didn’t have to be alone, and maybe that was enough.

On their last trip to the Citadel, Shepard avoided visiting Anderson until she absolutely had to, and when she did, she went alone. She looked haunted when she returned. Garrus let her ride the elevator to the loft alone, but when it returned, he followed.

The lock on her door was green, and it slid open as he lifted his hand to knock.

“Figured you’d come up,” she said, sitting on the couch, half-out of her armor, blood crusted down the back of her hand to her wrist-- _split them again_ , he thought, and sighed--with her forehead in her hands.

They were silent, then, for a long time. Eventually she returned to stripping off her armor, stacking it almost haphazardly, not in the way she used to.

“He sent me something,” she said, quietly, the words crushed together, strung out on not enough breath. “Kaidan.”

“Mm.” Garrus’s reply was neither encouraging nor damning.

“Said he tried to move on. Couldn’t.”

A nod. 

“That... he didn’t know who I was anymore.”

Garrus tried not to snort in derision; she deserved better, so much better.

“I don’t know, Garrus,” she whispered into her palms. “I... maybe I don’t know who I am anymore. Who... who I’m supposed to be. If I’m even alive or...”

The turian moved from the couch across from her to sit beside her, not touching, but hopefully more... present. “You’re alive, Shepard,” he said, softly. “And you’re _you_.”

“How... how do you _know?”_

“Because _I’m_ alive, and I’m not Archangel.” He wanted to lean forward, touch her, rest his forehead against hers, a need that was so suddenly ferocious that he nearly did before he caught himself. She didn’t know the meaning; she couldn’t, and it wasn’t fair.

Fuck, but how this entire _thing_ wasn’t fair. How her new life wasn’t fair; but neither was her death, and if neither was then the possibility that the entire galaxy was fucked was actually entirely probable.

_Dammit, Kaidan._

She listed, then, and Garrus readied himself to catch her if she tipped forward, but instead her shoulder met his, bridging the gap. He blinked, quickly, in surprise, as her head leaned against his undamaged cheek.

“I can’t, Garrus,” she said, so soft, staring limply at her hands. “I can’t. He... he called me traitor, left me there. I didn’t... I didn’t do anything wrong, did I?”

Garrus thought about the note he’d gotten from Anderson, both the one that he’d sent to all of the original Normandy members aboard and then the addendum that he sent only to Garrus. _Help her keep her head on straight, Vakarian. I think you might be the only one who can._

Well, it wasn’t a phrase he was familiar with, but he thought he knew one or two ways he could.

“No,” he said, trying to convey the comforting undertones of his subvocals as clearly as he could, gently slipping an arm around her, the calculated risk rewarded as she sank even further against him. “You didn’t.”

“But-- _why_ , then? I...”

_Spirits, what do I say?_ Garrus had never seen her so torn, so open, and the spot deep under his cowl that had flared into life when he found Monteague, Ripper, Sensat, Butler, Weaver... it ached again, that pain that he’d never been able to classify. “Sometimes... I don’t think we’re supposed to know why.”

They sat in silence, then, the soft, occasional swoosh of the aquarium’s water filter and the gentle hum of the Normandy around them letting the silence hang gently, not strained. Her body hiccuped against his, here and there, and he let her be.

Eventually she sat up, slowly, and he felt her armor--the kind you couldn’t see--wrapping around her again. “Thank you, Garrus,” she said quietly, looking at her hands, examining the half-healed knuckles, shuddering as she sighed. “I’m going to go see Chakwas about these, I think.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for wading through this… puddle of feels that this song inspired: [Kansas City - The New Basement Tapes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MwOarNpBcw)
> 
> I intended to write it around a romanced Kaidan/FemShep's reunion in Mass 3, which--for this Shep--translates as "wtf? you're saying I _cheated_ on you?!", but this got spun into the Horizon clusterfuck instead. I think it still fits.
> 
> Lyrics:
> 
> _I listen to you time and time again_  
>  While you tell me what is right  
> You tell me a thousand things a day  
> Then sleep somewhere's else at night  
> I'm going back to Kansas City 
> 
> _And I love you dear, but just how long_  
>  Can I keep singing the same old song  
> And I love you dear, but just how long  
> Can I keep singing the same old song  
> I'm going back to Kansas City 
> 
> _You call me to come and then I do_  
>  And then you say you made some mistake  
> You invited me into your house  
> And then you say you gotta pay for what you break  
> I'm going back to Kansas City 
> 
> _And I love you dear, but just how long_  
>  Can I keep singing the same old song  
> And I love you dear, but just how long  
> Can I keep singing the same old song  
> I'm going back to Kansas City 
> 
> _Just you wanna know every place I go_  
>  Even a thousand miles away from home  
> You don't care if I'm asleep or I'm awake  
> This fickle heart just turned to stone  
> I'm going back to Kansas City 
> 
> _And I love you dear, but just how long_  
>  Can I keep singing the same old song  
> And I love you dear, but just how long  
> Can I keep singing the same old song  
> I'm going back to Kansas City  


End file.
